Among the legion of fans lined along Jefferson Street in Seward to watch the men's Mount Marathon race last Fourth of July, Holly Brooks of Anchorage surely cemented win, place and show for most unusual appearance.

Some spectators stood, others lounged in their folding chairs or camp chairs, and still others kicked back in grassy yards. And then there sat Brooks, in a wheelchair, in front of Providence Seward Medical Center, an IV stand stationed at her side, a tube dripping fluids into her arm.

She had endured trauma hours earlier. Leading deep into the women's race up and down the 3,022-foot peak on a 70-degree day that tormented racers, and on the precipice of beating perennial champion Cedar Bourgeois, Brooks drove herself into heat exhaustion and dehydration. She required an hour in the emergency room before she checked herself out, gamely finished, then returned to the hospital.

From her wheelchair later that afternoon, Brooks watched the first men roll past and head toward the finish line downtown. Brent Knight, her teammate from the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center where Brooks also coaches, held a seemingly insurmountable lead. As more runners streamed by, Brooks figured Knight had won. Minutes later, an ambulance pulled up to the hospital behind her.

The ambulance's rear door opened, and Brooks heard piercing, chilling wails.

"I just heard someone screaming," Brooks recalled. "I thought, 'That person's in trouble. I wonder who that is?' "

Fifteen to 20 minutes later, she learned who: Brent Knight.

He had literally raced into unconsciousness, and collapsed on Fourth Avenue, within sight of the finish line, a mere 220 yards or so from winning Alaska's most prestigious footrace.

"And then I woke up in the hospital, which is probably the worst experience of my life," Knight recalled. "I feel lucky, definitely, to be alive."

Knight, 26, and Brooks, 28, will be on the starting line Sunday when the 83rd edition of Mount Marathon unfolds, a year after they pushed themselves so hard they suffered a syndrome that breaks down muscle tissue and halted their training for a couple of months.

Both athletes, whose principal sport is nordic skiing, were diagnosed with exertional rhabdomyolosis, caused by extensive exercise and dehydration. The only cure is rest.

"Brent and I, we depleted all the moisture from our bodies," Brooks said. "Basically, the muscles become brittle and tear. It kind of gives me the creeps."

The day after Mount Marathon, Brooks said, her quadriceps were so sore she could barely flex her knees. Knight said it was a week before he could walk steadily.

Brooks said she was so dehydrated in Seward it initially took nurses and doctors about 45 minutes to successfully find a vein in which to transmit fluids. Knight said he was so dehydrated he received six liters of fluid.

Brooks nonetheless managed to make the U.S. Olympic nordic ski team for this year's Winter Games. Knight's quest to make the team came up short.

'THE DANGER THRESHOLD'

For most people, it is difficult to fathom the fitness and mental strength necessary for athletes to race themselves into trauma. Even former Mount Marathon champion Trond Flagstad, the UAA ski coach, said he struggles to wrap his head around such a notion.

"For most people, even me and other people who can win (Mount Marathon), there's kind of a limit to how hard we can push ourselves," Flastad said. "And Brent, he can push himself over that limit, and that's what makes him so good."

Rob Whitney, Brooks' husband, said she possesses a remarkable ability to push herself.

"She has talent, and an uncanny ability to roll her eyes back and go," he said. "It takes a special person to go that extra two percent.''

Knight said he and elite skiers like Brooks train their bodies for years to tolerate severe pain.

"There's a pain threshold that's so high you start putting vital organs at risk -- I call that the danger threshold -- and you push your pain tolerance close to that danger threshold," Knight said. "Then you have your everyday pain threshold -- what Joe Schmo or Jane Doe gets to -- and that's way below the danger threshold.

"As a nordic skier, you train your body to endure pain -- who can ignore the most pain the longest? The simple fact is I went too hard for the heat. I shot right past the pain threshold and right into the danger threshold."

kNIGHT: MY MIND WENT BLANK

Last year, Knight and Brooks were both seeking their first victory at Mount Marathon. Knight, who twice has finished third, owned a huge lead coming off the mountain. Brooks, who finished second in her 2008 race debut, looked to unseat Bourgeois, whose victory last year was her sixth straight. Brooks led Bourgeois by 51 seconds at the summit.

Knight said the first half of his race went well, even though the heat made him uncomfortable. He passed early leader Sam Hill shortly after the turnaround at the top of the mountain -- "I was confident that if I could be first to the bottom, I could win it," Knight said.

After Knight reached the base of the mountain first and began running down Jefferson Street, he heard cheers behind him, which for some reason led him to believe Flagstad was close behind. Actually, Knight owned a substantial lead over eventual winner Matias Saari and Flagstad finished fourth.

In any event, Knight said, "I kind of went into whatever last gear I had left, and that's when my mind went blank."

A year later, Knight retains just three split-second snapshots from the last few minutes of his race. He remembers running down the road feeling horribly uncomfortable. He remembers clipping the arm of a woman leaning into the road to take a picture and stumbling. And he remembers being on his hands and knees after he collapsed -- a picture of that moment accompanies his e-mail address on the website for Skinny Raven Sports, where he works.

Otherwise, Knight knows only what witnesses have told him and what he gleaned from television footage and other video recorded that day.

"It's way scarier watching yourself go through this ordeal on the news,'' Knight said. "It was the most surreal thing to watch yourself and have no memory of it''

BROOKS: LEGS LIKE JELL-O

Brooks' problems began on the descent. She had pushed hard on the uphill, knowing Bourgeois was the fastest downhiller in the field. Beginning her descent, Brooks steeled herself.

" 'This is going to be fast and furious, and a little dangerous,' " she recalled thinking.

Brooks said her legs began to feel "like big sticks of Jell-O" on the downhill. Bourgeois after the race said she passed Brooks on the descent when she came upon her rival at a near stop, looking disoriented, as if she had lost the trail.

"It's a miracle I didn't fall and hit my head on a rock and injure myself more," Brooks said.

Olympic skier Kikkan Randall, another skier in the APU program and a woman who once suffered a meltdown on Mount Marathon, passed Brooks at the base of the mountain. She said her friend looked dazed.

As Brooks came off the mountain and stumbled along Jefferson Street, a friend stopped her. Berit Flora, a nurse and the mother of APU program director Erik Flora, who coaches Brooks, caught Brooks by the arm and steered her to the nearby hospital.

"She was staggering from the left side of the road to the right side, and it looked like she was going to fall, so I grabbed her under the arm," Flora said. "Her dad (Don) came up and got the other arm."

Brooks does not remember entering the hospital -- Flora said Brooks did not lose consciousness -- but her head soon cleared. She vowed to finish the race.

GOALS FOR SUNDAY

Both Brooks and Knight did finish.

Brooks checked out of the hospital, and accompanied by fiance Rob Whitney -- they married a week after the race -- walked to the finish line, finishing 212th. She beat 57 other official finishers.

After Knight was released from the hospital that night, he walked across the finish line, accompanied by his family, "to finish in my head." Fellow racers and friends were astounded when he briefly turned up at The Yukon Bar to congratulate Saari on his win -- Knight declined a beer, figuring he'd had enough of dehydration.

After last year's ordeal, Brooks said she wants to do well in her return Sunday, but not at the risk of her health or her skiing career.

"It definitely makes me want to go back and finish the race the right way, but at the same time I'm wary," she said. "Really, this one race is not worth eight weeks (of no training). Skiing is my main sport -- mountain running is my passion, but not my main sport.

"My No. 1 goal is to get down the mountain safely, and I'm not going to compromise. My No. 2 goal is to have fun. And the No. 3 is to have a good result."

With moderate conditions forecast for Sunday's race, Knight likewise said he'll just do the best he can and be satisfied.

"I'll go as hard as I can and try to finish in front, but I'm not broken up if I don't,'' Knight said. "I want to be able to finish this year, and have a beer and toast whoever wins."